Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood, garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment, not working with the eye without the ear, and but in purged judgement trusting neither? Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.

Add to favorites

Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperses to naught.

He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

"Hamlet", Act 1 scene 2

Add to favorites

Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

"Hamlet", Act 1 scene 3

Add to favorites

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

"Hamlet", Act 1 scene 3

Add to favorites

But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honoured in the breach than the observance.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!

"Hamlet", Act 2 scene 2

Add to favorites

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go.

"Hamlet", Act 3 scene 1

Add to favorites

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

"Hamlet", Act 3 scene 1

Add to favorites

O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

"Hamlet", Act 3 scene 1

Add to favorites

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep: No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to,--'t is a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.

"Hamlet", Act 3 scene 1

Add to favorites

Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? Polonius: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or like a whale? Polonius: Very like a whale.

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't,
A brother's murder.

"Hamlet", Act 3 scene 3

Add to favorites

For 'tis the sport to have the engineer
Hoist with his own petard...

"Hamlet", Act 3 scene 4

Add to favorites

I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

"Hamlet", Act 3 scene 4

Add to favorites

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

"Hamlet", Act 4 scene 5

Add to favorites

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now; your gambols, your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? Quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come.

"Hamlet", Act 5 scene 1

Add to favorites

A hit, a very palpable hit.

"Hamlet", Act 5 scene 2

Add to favorites

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

"Julius Caesar", Act 1 scene 2

Add to favorites

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

"Julius Caesar", Act 2 scene 2

Add to favorites

Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war.

"Julius Caesar", Act 3 scene 1

Add to favorites

Et tu, Brute!

"Julius Caesar", Act 3 scene 1

Add to favorites

How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

"Julius Caesar", Act 3 scene 1

Add to favorites

For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men.

"Julius Caesar", Act 3 scene 2

Add to favorites

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.

"Julius Caesar", Act 3 scene 2

Add to favorites

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

"Julius Caesar", Act 4 scene 3

Add to favorites

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

"Julius Caesar", Act II Scene 2

Add to favorites

If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

"King Henry V", Act 3 scene 1

Add to favorites

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

"King Henry V", Act 3 scene 1

Add to favorites

There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.

"King Henry V", Act 5 scene 1

Add to favorites

The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day
Is crept into the bosom of the sea.

"King Henry VI Part II", Act 4 scene 1

Add to favorites

And many strokes, though with a little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.

"King Henry VI Part III", Act 2 scene 1

Add to favorites

'T is better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perked up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.

"King Henry VIII", Act 2 scene 3

Add to favorites

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York,
And all the clouds that loured upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,--
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

"Macbeth", Act 2 scene 1

Add to favorites

The attempt and not the deed
Confounds us.

"Macbeth", Act 2 scene 2

Add to favorites

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!

"Macbeth", Act 4 scene 1

Add to favorites

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

"Macbeth", Act 4 scene 1

Add to favorites

Out, damned spot! out, I say!

"Macbeth", Act 5 scene 1

Add to favorites

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

"Macbeth", Act 5 scene 5

Add to favorites

Lay on, Macduff,
And damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"

"Macbeth", Act 5 scene 8

Add to favorites

Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.

I am not merry; but I do beguile
The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.

"Othello", Act 2 scene 1

Add to favorites

Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.

"Othello", Act 3 scene 3

Add to favorites

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'T is mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.

If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt.

Like one
Who having into truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie.

"The Tempest", Act 1 scene 2

Add to favorites

My library
Was dukedom large enough.

"The Tempest", Act 1 scene 2

Add to favorites

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance.

"The Tempest", Act 1 scene 2

Add to favorites

There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with 't.

"The Tempest", Act 1 scene 2

Add to favorites

What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time?

"The Tempest", Act 1 scene 2

Add to favorites

A very ancient and fish-like smell.

"The Tempest", Act 2 scene 2

Add to favorites

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

"The Tempest", Act 2 scene 2

Add to favorites

He that dies pays all debts.

"The Tempest", Act 3 scene 2

Add to favorites

A kind
Of excellent dumb discourse.

"The Tempest", Act 3 scene 3

Add to favorites

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

"The Tempest", Act 4 scene 1

Add to favorites

Merrily, merrily shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

"The Tempest", Act 5 scene 1

Add to favorites

Where the bee sucks, there suck I;
In a cowslip's bell I lie.

"The Tempest", Act 5 scene 1

Add to favorites

Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.

"The Two Gentlemen of Verona", Act 1 scene 1

Add to favorites

I have no other but a woman's reason:
I think him so, because I think him so.

"The Two Gentlemen of Verona", Act 1 scene 2

Add to favorites

O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day!

The end crowns all,
And that old common arbitrator, Time,
Will one day end it.

"Troilus and Cressida", Act 4 scene 5

Add to favorites

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!

Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose that you resolved to effect.

'The Tempest'

Add to favorites

Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently. For in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

'The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,' Act III, scene ii

Add to favorites

Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.